image credit: spartareport.com
Yesterday’s blog was about the film Gosnell, free speech, and free markets. Now comes an American Thinker report by Thomas Lifson titled
“Stunning 85-page Google memo
'The Good Censor' leaked to
Breitbart”
Lifson's blog begins:
If you are not worried about the
power of Google to shape debate and elections according to its leftist
political bias, you're not paying attention. I congratulate Breitbart.com for the
scoop, and I urge everyone – I am looking at you, President Trump and Congress
– to read and ponder the fate of the Republic unless this company is defanged,
most likely by antitrust action, but possibly also via civil courts.
He then quotes Allum Bokhari's introduction and
summary of the memo here,
including:
An internal company briefing
produced by Google and leaked exclusively to Breitbart News argues that due to
a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the
"American tradition" of free speech on the internet is no longer
viable. ...
[T]he 85-page briefing, titled
"The Good Censor," admits that Google and other tech platforms now
"control the majority of online conversations" and have undertaken a
"shift towards censorship" in response to unwelcome political events
around the world.
The briefing labels the ideal of
unfettered free speech on the internet a "utopian narrative" that has
been "undermined" by recent global events as well as "bad
behavior" on the part of users. ...
It acknowledges that major tech
platforms, including Google, Facebook and Twitter initially promised free
speech to consumers. "This free speech ideal was instilled in
the DNA of the Silicon Valley startups that now control the majority of our
online conversations," says the document.
The briefing argues that Google,
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions,
the "unmediated marketplace of ideas" vs. "well-ordered spaces
for safety and civility."
Terrifying. The Breitbart scoop is here.
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